Customer Reviews

A Mouthful of Air

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Koppleman has written a harrowing story of a young woman's struggle with post-partum depression. In low key prose that reflects Julie Davis' desire to live a quasi-normal life after surviving a recent suicide attempt, Julie seems, on the surface, to have an enviable life: a successful husband, a baby boy and an upscale New York apartment. But Julie's troubles dwell below the surface, sometimes not even visible to her.

Julie's mother is a desperate woman, obsessed with her own fading youth, divorced by her womanizing husband after 27 years of marriage. For his part, Julie's father has exhibited inappropriate behavior around his daughter throughout her life, confusing her sexual identity and blurring boundaries. These parents have deeply affected their daughter's self-image, leaving their daughter vulnerable to an overwhelming downward spiral after the birth of her son.

Medication and therapy offer significant improvement in Julie's depression. But when she discovers that she is pregnant again, after only a year, the young couple is faced with a serious dilemma. Julie's obstetrician believes her antidepressant will not harm the fetus, but her psychiatrist disagrees. To protect the baby, Julie suspends the medication until after the birth of her child. With live-in help and therapeutic supervision, the young woman directs all her energy toward maintaining a healthy and stable pregnancy, physically and emotionally.

Over the years, Julie has developed the skills necessary for maintaining a secret life, first mastering the intricate rituals of an eating disorder in her teens. Once the emotional demons are unleashed, however, they are powerful and patient. Even Julie forgets how cleverly her mind works to defeat her best intentions: "She learned to cry in the womb of her antidepressant. Mistakenly, from this accomplishment, she thought she had survived."

Koppleman's brave and important novel speaks for women without voices, so tormented by negative ideation that their families suffer the worst possible consequences, suicide and infanticide. A passionate plea on behalf of such women, A Mouthful of Air serves as a reminder to a society often oblivious to the silent suffering of others. In the character of Julie Davis, Koppleman's story is an expression of hope, that any young mother, riddled with self-loathing and nameless fears, may live in the daylight, released from the dark confines of a treatable disease. Luan Gaines/2003.

A searing novel written with authority. A rare gem. Ms. Koppelman's is a new voice in the tradition of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion. I'll be teaching this one in my graduate fiction class for many years to come. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. It won't let go of you until long after you're done reading it.

I had no idea what this novel was going to be about, which is the best way to go in, isn't it? I was absolutely devastated and enthralled by Koppelman's beautiful writing. What a book. It has really stayed with me. A must read.

As soon as I discovered A Mouthful of Air online and read an excerpt, I thought, I have to get this book. I was especially drawn by the promise of sparse, elegant prose and its story of a young mother suffering from postpartum depression.

And as soon as I found the book, I could not stop reading it ~ started on Thursday night, put it down only to catch some sleep, woke up and read till I finished. I've read thousands of books and enjoyed many of them ~ but Amy Koppelman's brilliant, quiet, harrowingly transportive writing stands out over everything I've read in recent memory.

From the first page of the story, I'm immediately and vividly inside main character Julie Davis's mind, her emotions, actions, and memories ~ seeing, feeling, and thinking right along with her in a visceral way ~ which is astonishing because Koppelman uses such lean, uncluttered prose. I was totally in Julie Davis's head through the whole book, and can't stop reflecting back on her, her experiences, her despair. The fact that Koppelman accomplished this via the third-person is another testament to the power of her writing. It is poetry, anguish, simplicity, darkness, clarity, all interwoven.

I recommend A Mouthful of Air for library and book club discussion groups and will bring it to my own group when we meet in August. The story prompts discussion on so many levels. I've started making some notes of questions about the characters' inner and outer lives, and their possible futures. These questions intrigue me because I love unique fiction that rings this true to my spirit, and because the answers can apply to real people who are experiencing real suffering.

Note ~ partial spoiler ahead ~
In ending the book as she does, Koppelman shows integrity and courage as a human being and a creative artist. We live in such a sit-com, Hollywood-ending culture, many of us have gotten lulled into a superficial dead-zone emotionally ~ we want our books and movies to just have happy endings, to reassure us everything will be all right. We think "reality shows" are real life. And we also flock to the opposite extreme to ultra-violence in genre fiction, film, music....Anything to avoid facing the truths and mundanities of our own lives, I guess. That said, I do understand that the ending to this book might be too overwhelming for some readers.

I've tried reading other contemporary novels about various forms of mental illness but couldn't finish them ~ their sentimentalized renderings struck me as profoundly inauthentic. I always hold out hope for miracles and change. But I'm grateful for courageous and skilled writers like Amy Koppelman who are willing to write about darker outcomes ~ because in their stories, I find solace, strength, new empathy, and new ideas.

Exquisitely driven by two narratives, one internal and the other chronological, Amy Koppelman's brilliant debut novel explores the devastating consequences of a failed suicide attempt by a bright, terribly insecure and depressed young woman. "A Mouthful of Air" is not for the weak-hearted. It is an unflinching description of survivor guilt, mental illness and personality disintegration. Koppelman's writing is lean, precise and wrenching; she permits us to have just enough understanding of her protagonist's torment to identify with her anguish, but not so much that we can predict what will occur next.

Julie Davis "is simply worn out from worry: who she loves, how she loves, if her love is good enough." This pervasive fear causes her to tremble even at the most common of encounters. A failed suicide attempt makes the innocuous greeting "How are you doing today?" into a question fraught with complicated possibilities. In truth, Julie is without hope. Her goal of literal self-eradication fails, and she is left with the burden of picking up the pieces of her life, trying to reassemble them into some kind of order and learning how to develop the skills to go through each day.

In fact, she is so immobilized by her illness that what appears to be a simple task (shopping, deciding what to wear, using an elevator) overwhelms her. We are painfully aware that she has been released from psychiatric hospitalization prematurely. Her "tiredness, overwhelming sorrow and endless sense of loss" are felt "both gradually and immediately." Despite being married to a loving, loyal man and having given birth to a sweet-natured boy, Julie senses her relationships are doomed. Permanently damaged by a flawed, conflicted and ambiguous relationship with her own father (Koppelman alludes to abuse but never directly states it), Julie's perceptions of relationships "insist that all of the people she loves, including her son, will leave her." This unceasing insecurity riddles her life with despair.

At its best, Koppelman's deft handling of Julie's internal voice captures a frightened woman's litany of unresolved problems. Her declarative sentences often read as questions, and her questions seldom produce responses that becalm her protagonist. Julie Davis never has a calm day, much less a peaceful hour. Despite considerable wealth (her husband's salary provides live-in help), Julie never has enough time to accomplish her quotidian tasks. As a result, her life unspools, and her ability to ascertain coherence fails.

Amy Koppelman reminds us that there may be palliatives for mental illness, but they are not cures. The ghosts of past trauma have resilient half-lives, and they haunt the core personality of those who are suffering. "A Mouthful of Air" is one of those unusual novels where suffering is neither redemptive or deserved but instructive and chastening. Koppelman is an author who has much to teach us.

If A MOUTHFUL OF AIR is the type of fiction novelist Amy Koppelman can churn out on a regular basis, then she has quite an impressive literary career ahead of her.

Koppelman's debut novel, set in New York City, centers on Julie Davis, a young mother dealing with the aftershock of a failed suicide attempt from postpartum depression. From the onset of A MOUTHFUL OF AIR, Koppelman, who is a frequent contributor to The New York Observer, quickly submerses you into the story with rapid fire pace. Julie does all she can to piece her life back together with her doting husband Ethan and her toddler Teddy. But we soon learn that Julie's depression is much more than just a case of the "baby blues." Her depression is extremely debilitating. Everyday tasks in Julie's world aren't carried out that easily. Koppelman keeps the neurosis of her character chugging along. Whether she's pushing a baby carriage through the streets of Manhattan or taking in a Knicks game with her husband and his friends, Julie always seems to be inches away from a complete nervous breakdown.

Nonetheless, Julie does all she can to carry out some semblance of a normal and loving marriage with her husband until she is faced with a momentous decision after discovering she's pregnant with her second child. While her doctors are at opposite ends of the anti-depressant spectrum, Julie must decide whether to remain on Zoloft during her pregnancy and risk abnormalities or halt her prescription and deal with the disease.

Most importantly about A MOUTHFUL OF AIR is the underlying theme that depression, no matter what shape or form, isn't something to be brushed off as merely a case of melancholy. Currently, 17 million Americans suffer from some form of depression on a yearly basis, including this reviewer who is being treated with Prozac for clinical depression.

Koppelman also does a tremendous job conveying the point that, although Julie is surrounded with some degree of affluence, none of it can pacify the mental anguish of depression. After Ethan relocates the family from Manhattan to a stately manor on Long Island, Julie attends a Tupperware party hosted by one of her neighbors. Koppelman is able to illustrate with surgeon-like precision the nuances of life in suburbia and how, at times, the country lifestyle can be extremely suffocating to deal with, especially if a person is suffering from depression.

Although the story is extremely dark at times and contains strong language, the mood of the novel is a clear insight to the depth of talent Koppelman possesses as a writer. This type of novel is what makes fiction such a joy to read, for it allows readers to experience total escapism and take a breather from dealing with their own problems.

--- Reviewed by David Exum

This is a beautifully written book about a girl "who had it all." The strength of this book is the writer's objectivity: she delineates the sickness unto death of a tragic figure lost in her own psyche, who cannot escape despite wealth, good looks, intelligence, a good education, and the skills of first rate psychiatrists. We can feel the pain of the main character without getting lost in it. The novel more than mere description. It is a commentary upon societal values and the lack of spirituality where self-awareness and intelligence are totally unable to take this woman from darkness into any kind of happiness.

This book is for all those who envy the haves and for those haves who see no way out of their misery, for all those with daughters who wish to help them avoid such misery and for those who simply want to enjoy a well written, masterfully plotted novel.

I first heard of this novel when I heard Amy Koppelman do an interview on NPR. Hearing her speak compelled me to buy the book at once. While it was painful at most times, I am glad I bought it.

Amy, through Julie Davis, provides a sharp, realistic look inside the mind of a troubled young mother battling both post-partum depression and a lifetime of emotional battering at the hands of her parents. Externally, she is living a "normal" life of an NYC mother. Internally, she is barely hanging on. So many times throughout the novel, I wanted to help her get off the trajectory she was taking.

Despite Julie's demons, she has a genuine love for her son. Amy was able to convey that love so clearly and poignantly. If only she had been given the chance to be Teddy's mother, she could have changed everything. Though I wanted to believe so badly that Julie would turn things around, I feared the worst, yet was surprised by the book's ending.

I would recommend this book on several levels. It is crisply written, and moves the reader along with Julie in realtime. It is such a vivid portrayal of post-partum depression, motherly love, and marital relations all rolled into one. It's not a light read, but rather a powerful one, and one that will forever change the way I look at young mothers (myself included).

While this book is beautifully written and pulled me right into being the main character, I have to caution any woman who is either currently suffering through or has endured postpartum illness. This book is not for us.

Perhaps someone who has never had disturbing thoughts about their child could read it and see it as a multi-layered story with a tragic ending and think that it was a more real portrayal of depression. Koppelman does get into the thoughts of a truly depressed woman. But as a postpartum depression survivor, I was very disturbed and upset by the ending. As a support group leader, I can never recommend this book to any group member. Koppelman has put on paper the worst fears of these women.

Again, Koppelman's writing style is brilliant. This had the potential of being an inspiring story. But read it with caution.

Warning: do not read this book unless you are willing to believe that motherhood does not come naturally to all women, that there is such a thing as post-partum depression, and that you can love a book even though you are guarded about the choices the protagonist makes.
This is a book I couldn't put down, reading it in about four hours. I know I will never forget Koppleman's style or story. It is, however, a most difficult situation that Julie, the main character, finds herself entangled in and not even her perfect, loving husband and darling infant son seem to keep her tethered to sanity.